Microorganisms form colonies and mixed biofilms in microhabitats that are poised for activation, leading to the term "hotspots". Within hotspots, ecologically relevant biogeochemical processes occur in small volumes in soil as microbial colonies leave their dormant state and become active during brief hot moments when activated. In addition, semagenesis, the process of signal generation, is operating in both parasitic and non-parasitic plants and carries spatiotemporal information about the plant root surface allowing bacterial pathogens at the plant surface to coordinate their behavior with phenols mapping an active redox network. To test whether the complex rhizosphere inhabitants participate in this network, a simple experimental model known as a time dependent propagation using easily detected phenazine analogs were placed in a redox reaction-diffusion network model of the rhizosphere. We show two redox active molecules, a plant quinone and bacterial phenazine, in a thermodynamically open system that can define burst kinetics, spatial gradients, and precise spatial and temporal patterns of redox gradients that may be used for organizing non-enzymatically the external organ that is the rhizosphere. The developed mathematical models define large-scale spatiotemporal resolution through regulated reaction-diffusion networks that can now be used for a systems chemistry analysis with high environmental, chemical, and biological tractability. Our foundational grounding will be positioned to exploit the unique insight provided by mutualistic associations to expand expertise across diverse environments to transform crop viability and productivity globally potentially having a positive effect on agriculture innovation and climate change mitigation globally.

Utilizing systems chemistry to understand hotspots in the rhizosphere of plants

ACS Spring 2022

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